Great Ormond Street children's hospital still offline after WannaCrypt omnishambles

Precautionary disconnect – patients still being looked after

Updated The internationally famous Great Ormond Street Hospital has been taken offline as a safety measure following last week's catastrophic WannaCrypt outbreak.

The London-based children's hospital was not itself hit by the ransomware but has nonetheless quarantined its computer network. This has left staff without either email or general internet access from inside the hospital. Staff can still call externally but the internal phone system is also temporarily out of commission.

Susannah Flood, PR manager at Great Ormond Street Hospital, told The Register: “Great Ormond Street Hospital was not affected by the virus but as a matter of precaution, we shut down all external communications systems - external website and email. A firewall was in place and it worked.”

El Reg learned that the precautionary disconnect at Great Ormond Street Hospital from a source outside the hospital who forwarded an email that suggested the precautionary disconnection might extend until next Monday, though this remains subject to progress and unconfirmed.

A staffer at the NHS national media team told us that two hospital trusts nationally (in Hertfordshire and Essex) are still affected by WannaCrypt, adding that this wasn't a definitive list. He went on to suggest that the the widely reported figure of 47 NHS Trusts nationally getting hit by WannaCrypt might be inaccurate. He wasn't able to offer a confirmed (official) figure, explaining that the full extent of the damage is still being assessed. ®

Updated at 15.55 UTC to add: GOSH contacted us to let us know that "email and web services" as well as all phone systems are back up.